Hana Financial Group (086790.KS), one of South Korea's major financial holding companies, has bought its way into the country's largest crypto franchise — and in doing so has reopened a question the market thought was settled: who banks Upbit after October?
Through its banking unit Hana Bank, the group agreed to purchase a 6.5 percent stake in Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, Korea's largest cryptocurrency exchange, for about ₩1 trillion ($647 million), buying the shares from Kakao Investment, the investment arm of tech group Kakao. The purchase makes Hana Dunamu's fourth-largest shareholder and, according to the Korea Times, the first Korean financial holding company to take an ownership stake in a cryptocurrency exchange operator. CoinDesk reported the transaction was set to close on June 15, 2026.
Why a fund manager cares: Kbank's deposit base
The reason the deal matters beyond a single equity check is timing. Upbit's real-name deposit-and-withdrawal account partnership with Kbank, a Korean internet-only bank, has run since 2020 and is set to expire in October 2026. Real-name accounts are mandatory plumbing for any licensed Korean exchange, so the partner bank captures the float and the customer relationships that come with it.
For Kbank, that float is not a rounding error. Deposits tied to the Upbit relationship stood at ₩5.2 trillion (about $3.4 billion) in the first quarter of 2026, equal to 18.4 percent of Kbank's total deposits — down from 20.5 percent at the end of 2025, the Korea Times reported. A change of banking partner would therefore put close to one-fifth of Kbank's deposit base in question, which is the single number that frames the entire story for an outside investor.
That is also why the speculation is plausible rather than idle. As one financial-industry official told the Korea Times, "For banks, a real-name account partnership with a cryptocurrency exchange is a strategic business opportunity rather than a simple transactional relationship, given its impact on customer acquisition and deposits." An equity stake gives Hana both a seat at the table and an obvious incentive to pursue the banking mandate when the contract lapses.
Kbank says it isn't worried
Kbank has pushed back on the switching thesis. On its first-quarter earnings call in April, the bank said, "Our partnership with Upbit continues to strengthen. Given the many opportunities for future cooperation, we expect our contractual relationship to remain intact," per the Korea Times. Kbank has also signaled it wants to broaden the relationship beyond spot trading into stablecoins and corporate crypto services.
Hana, for its part, is framing the investment as a partnership rather than a raid. CoinDesk reported that Hana and Dunamu plan to collaborate on won-pegged stablecoins, blockchain remittances, tokenized securities and digital asset management — areas that do not strictly require displacing Kbank.
The bigger board
The Hana stake also lands in the middle of a much larger reshuffling of Dunamu's ownership. In November 2025, Naver Financial, the fintech arm of Korea's largest internet company Naver, agreed to acquire Dunamu in an all-stock deal valued at roughly $10.3 billion, a transaction Bloomberg reported is scheduled to take effect in late June 2026 and still requires clearance from the Fair Trade Commission, Korea's antitrust regulator. Upbit handles more than 80 percent of South Korean virtual asset trading volume, according to CoinDesk, which is why every major financial and tech platform in the country is now maneuvering for a piece of it.
What to watch
The decisive data point is the October 2026 renewal of the Upbit-Kbank real-name account contract — that is when the speculation either converts into a partner change or is put to rest. Two earlier markers will color it: the June 15 closing of Hana's stake purchase and the late-June effectiveness (pending FTC approval) of the Naver Financial-Dunamu merger, which will determine who Hana's largest co-shareholders actually are when the banking decision is made.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Figures are sourced from the cited reporting; readers should verify against primary disclosures before making any decisions.
